Untouchable

逆鳞

China, 2024, colour/b&w, 2.35:1, 111 mins.

Director: Da Qing 大庆 [Wang Daqing 王大庆].

Rating: 8/10.

Cat-and-mouse gangster drama, set in 1990s pre-handover Macau, is stylishly written and mounted, with  memorable playing by Shen Teng and Gao Jie [Jack Kao].

STORY

Somewhere in northeast China, 1990. A natural since a boy, Zun Fei (Shen Teng) is a young boxer who’s always been a complete loner. He becomes famous overnight after knocking out a cocky champion in three seconds. However, because the move is illegal he is banned from the sport. But having bet RMB10,000 on himself at odds of 50:1 with a Macau bookmaker, and made RMB500,000, he and his pals set off for pastures new down south in Macau, a onetime Portuguese colony that has already agreed to be handed back to China in 1999. Zun Fei tells his best friend Chang Xilai (Qu Zheming), a cook, to join him when he’s fed up with his job. Six years later, in 1996, Chang Xilai joins Zun Fei in Macau. Zun Fei looks successful and prosperous; he tells Chang Xilai that he initially tried to study to become a lawyer but then changed course. He’s actually a gang leader, working for Taiwan businessman Huang Chaojin (Gao Jie), whose woman, Su Xiao (Zhang Yuqi), runs a big, classy nightclub in an old colonial building on his behalf. Zun Fei introduces Chang Xilai to his gang members, several of whom, like his deputy Yaowu (Liu Huan), are from his original band in northeast China. Zun Fei introduces Chang Xilai to Huang Chaojin and tells him to make himself at home. Meanwhile, Huang has a job for Zun Fei: to pay a visit to Jiang Jingquan, aka Jiang Huatou/Slippery Jiang (Wei Xiang), who used to work for Huang Chaojin and now owns a large ship that’s a highly profitable floating casino. Six years ago Jiang Jingquan stole RMB2 million from Huang Chaojin, which didn’t trouble him at the time but which he now feels should be repaid, along with a warning. While Huang Chaojin is talking with Zun Fei, mobsters from across the square arrive and demand a couple of Su Xiao’s showgirls. Su Xiao faces them off. Afterwards, Huang Chaojin tells Zun Fei to keep an eye on her, as he suspects she wants to leave him for someone else. Next day Zun Fei settles the mobster problem by pumping liquid manure into their club, beating them up when they come out, and then ordering them to leave Macau. Su Xiao thanks Zun Fei with some cash, and tells him she’s alrady split up with Huang Chaojin and wants to sell the nightclub and move to Australia. She invites him to join her there sometime. Zun Fei and his men visit Jiang Jingquan, beat up his staff, retrieve the RMB2 million and leave him with a stern warning. Back in Macau, Su Xiao is furious when Huang Chaojin’s people prevent her from selling the nightclub; Zun Fei tells her to calm down. (Five years earlier, Huang Chaojin had told Zun Fei that he couldn’t understand why he wanted to become a lawyer; if Zun Fei persisted, he couldn’t help him anymore. During their chat, Zun Fei had met Su Xiao for the first time and been smitten by her. At the same time, Zun Fei had saved Huang Chaojin’s life from two assassins.) Jiang Jingquan offers Huang Chaojin a partnership deal on the casino ship but Zun Fei advises Huang Chaojin against it, as the ship is officially licensed as a passenger vessel. Meanwhile, Chang Xilai falls for Zun Fei’s cousin Taozi (Cai Wenjing), a young lame woman who’s just gone through a painful break-up. Zun Fei encourages his friend in the relationship, which prospers. Feeling good about himself, Zun Fei meets Su Xiao one evening and in a roundabout way proposes that they should both leave Macau together, even though going off with a boss’ woman is against all the accepted rules of the underworld. He asks her to wait one more year for him to amass enough money. At Huang Chaojin’s request, and for a 30% share of the profits, Zun Fei agrees to sign a contract with Jiang Jingquan on his behalf. To keep his hands completely clean, Huang Chaojin says the cash takings from the casino are to be laundered through Su Xiao’s nightclub; he tells Zun Fei to arrange it with her. Zun Fei privately tells Su Xiao to deposit any spare cash in his own bank account. Their conversation is overheard by a Cantonese-speaking gunman (Jiang Bing) working for Huang Chaojin; when he reports the conversation, Huang Chaojin unexpectedly clubs the gunman to death and then tells Zun Fei to clear up the mess. Zun Fei makes it look like a car accident in the entrance to Huang Chaojin’s villa, and gets Yaowu to take the fall, expecting just a brief custodial sentence of a month or so. Su Xiao asks Zun Fei if Huang Chaojin is really as confused as he seems or is just pretending. Zun Fei tells her not to worry, as Huang Chaojin needs both of them at the moment. One year later, everyone has been prospering from the casino ship deal. But then Yaowu, who ended up serving a year in jail, comes out and angrily demands recompense and an apology from Zun Fei. Su Xiao also warns Zun Fei to be be extra careful, as their air tickets to Melbourne are booked for next Tuesday.

REVIEW

Shot some six years ago, and repeatedly announced as about to be released in the early 2020s, cat-and-mouse gangster drama Untouchable 逆鳞 has been well worth the wait. Stylishly written, and motored by terrific performances from popular light comedian Shen Teng 沈腾 (in what was then his first “serious” role) and Taiwan veteran Gao Jie 高捷 [Jack Kao], the Macau-set powerplay between a young opportunist and his elder, ruthless boss is a dramatically gripping experience that, for a change, isn’t a minute too long. Despite musing on things like friendship and betrayal, at the end of the day it’s no more than a crime drama – but a very good one. Alas, it was poorly received on the Mainland – with a torrent of online reviews criticising Shen’s performance, the lack of action, and the supposedly cliched storyline trying to ape Hong Kong crime classics – and only took a very mild RMB175 million.

It’s the first feature by Beijing-born Wang Daqing 王大庆, the son of distinguished character actor Wang Xueqi 王学圻. Now 51, Wang Daqing started in advertising in the early 1990s, working as the creative director of several agencies before studying at the London Film School, graduating in 2007 with the short Red Boy (which featured his future wife, model-presenter Fan Xia 范霞, who now works as a production executive, including on Untouchable). After more advertising work back in Beijing, he was one of nine directors contributing an episode to the feature One Day 有一天 (2014), centred on children with various physical or social disadvantages. Wang’s episode, 太阳会飞 (literally, “The Sun Can Fly”), centred on the young daughter of a convict, also featured actresses Siqin Gaowa 斯琴高娃 and Zhou Xun 周迅. In 2016 Wang left advertising to concentrate fulltime on directing.

The script of Untouchable – then known as 光天化日 (“In Broad Daylight”) – was written by Shang Ke 尚可, pen name of Harbin-born writer and film magazine editor Fan Haoran 范浩然, 55; adapted from his original script 醉城 (“Drunken City”), it was approved for shooting in 2017. Filming appears to have taken place in 2018, and maybe early 2019; but the picture was not certified until the autumn of 2023 and was only released a year later in late Aug 2024. Shang Ke, who went on to write the tough desert drama Tiger Wolf Rabbit 浴火之路 (2024), released a couple of months after Untouchable, is credited as creative producer 监制 as well as scriptwriter, on the same title card as Wang, who shortens his name to just Da Qing 大庆.

Shen’s box-office appeal is still strong in the kind of ironic comedies he’s known for: Successor 抓娃娃, starring him and frequent co-star Ma Li 马丽, came out a month or so before Untouchable and took a massive RMB3.33 billion, while another of his starring vehicles, Pegasus 2 飞驰人生2, released in Feb 2024, took even more (RMB3.40 billion). Though his role in Untouchable was a big change at the time for Shen – then in his late 30s and on a major roll from a string of ironic comedies (Goodbye Mr. Loser 夏洛特烦恼, 2015; Never Say Die 羞羞的铁拳, 2017; Hello Mr. Billionaire 西虹市首富, 2018) – he has since branched out occasionally with more nuanced roles (Full River Red 满江红, 2023), making Untouchable seem less of a radical change nowadays. Nevertheless, at least in the Mainland, audiences have repeatedly demonstrated they prefer the Shen they know than the one they don’t.

Looked at objectively, Shen’s performance is actually close to the kind of comically laidback opportunist he’s known for – except that, in Untouchable, it’s more finely calibrated. In the same way that sometime comedian Xiao Yang 肖央 has flecked serious roles with lighter touches (Walk the Line 扫黑   决不放弃, 2024; Tiger Wolf Rabbit), so Shen imbues his anti-hero, Zun Fei, with plenty of ironic charm behind his studiously blank face. His young boxer from northeast China who heads south to the gambling centre of Macau in the early 1990s to reap the whirlwind is shown early on, despite being a rogue, to have basic principles, including a desire to live a creditable life with some dignity.

Shen’s breathy delivery of his lines brings a quiet menace to the character; but at the end of the day Zun Fei isn’t half as menacing as his Taiwan boss, the ruthless and unreadable Huang Chaojin, portrayed by veteran Gao in a terrific performance that caps a whole career of playing similar types. The cat-and-mouse game between the two, with Huang Chaojin the supposedly amicable boss and Zun Fei the supposedly loyal right-hand-man, motors the picture with the latter planning to make off with the former’s woman and the former apparently acquiescing. The accumulated tension is finally released at the 75-minute mark, as all hell breaks loose with a police/customs raid and the comfy status quo is shattered.

The literate script, which blends gangland slang with educated bons mots, and has an over-reaching architecture that doesn’t need splashy shootouts or fights, is beautifully paced, shot and edited. The tension comes from the characters themselves rather than physical action – best seen in sequences like Zun Fei being confronted by a loyal but angry gang member who’s just out of prison or – most notably – in the final confrontation between Zun Fei and Huang Chaojin, a gripping, 12-minute scene that the whole movie has been leading to and in which everything is finally laid bare. In a nice touch, Gao’s character even slips into Hokkien (Taiwan’s local dialect) as the pressure mounts.

The whole cast hardly has a weak link, though Zhang Yuqi 张雨绮, despite having the looks, poise and mystery for the key role of the woman-in-the-middle, is too often let down by her squeaky voice that undercuts the assured, sensual figure we see on screen. It’s a problem that has dogged the Shandong-born actress, then in her early 30s, throughout her career CJ7 长江7号, 2008; White Deer Plain 白鹿原, 2012), though not in her then most recent role, the odd-couple road movie Come Across Love 不期而遇 (2017). On a more positive note, comedian Wei Xiang 魏翔 is consistent value for money in a serious role as the oily head of the casino ship.

If changes demanded by the China Film Administration were the reason for the film’s delay, there are no signs of any cutting in the finished movie which, in the editing by Du Guangwei 杜光玮 (Tiger Wolf Rabbit), has a logical flow. However, in the opening titles and in a b&w coda, the film does go out of its way to underline how, prior to its handover, Macau was a foreign colony “waiting for radical change” 等待改天换地 and how, since its handover, it is now full of opportunities in which Zun Fei could have properly prospered.

Though none of the main companies involved were South Korean, there seems to have been some Korean involvement in the production, judging by the end credits, maybe in location shooting. Also, some of the action choreographers are Korean and, more significantly, so is the film’s d.p., Yu Eok 유억 | 柳亿, whose prior films included Confession 좋은친구들 (2014), Master 마스터 (2016), I Can Speak 아이 캔 스피크 (2017) and The Witness 목격자 (2018). The Chinese title literally means “Reverse(d) Scale”, referring to a classical allusion to a special scale on a dragon’s body that, if pressed, can turn him from a friendly creature into a deadly enemy. More germane to the film, it can mean falling out of favour with one’s boss by pressing the wrong button.

CREDITS

Presented by C2M Pictures (Shanghai) (CN), Mei Ah Interstellar Film Distribution (Beijing) (CN), Beijing C2M Pictures (CN), Novoland International Cultural Communication (CN), Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Cultural Media (CN), Luck Pictures (CN), Beijing Star Rise Pictures (CN). Produced by C2M Pictures (Shanghai) (CN).

Script: Shang Ke. Script advice: Chen Zhijian, Tong Guoqiang. Script planning: A Nuo, Fan Hedan. Photography: Yu Eok. Editing: Du Guangwei. Editing advice: Xiao Yang. Music: Liu Cong. Art direction: Shu Xingjia. Costumes: Su Yanli. Sound: Chen Le, Tu Hao. Action: Go Hyeong-ung, Choi Guang-rak, Wu Yongsen. Visual effects: Li Song, Zhu Fei, Wan Ning (Beijing Tian Gong, Lefei VFX Studio). Executive direction: Piao Yun, Qian Ru.

Cast: Shen Teng (Zun Fei), Zhang Yuqi (Su Xiao), Gao Jie [Jack Kao] (Huang Chaojin), Cai Wenjing (Taozi, Zun Fei’s cousin), Qu Zheming (Chang Xilai), Wei Xiang (Jiang Jingquan/Jiang Huatou/Slippery Jiang), Liu Huan (Yaowu), Tao Hai (Lei Defu, chief detective), Jiang Bing (gunman), Yuan Bu (Langren/Ronin), Yin Cong (Zhanlong/War Dragon), Sun Yanxiang (Feizao/Soapy), Wang Huacheng (Yangzi), Zhao Bin (Shouma/Skinny Horse), Wei Na (Na’na).

Release: China, 23 Aug 2024.